****** - Verified Buyer
4.5
First, I must say this is a beautifully published book in every respect, as are all the books in the Adventure Library - the binding is actually sewn, the endpapers are very nice, the type is clear and easy on the eyes, and the illustrations throughout are magnificent. It is just a pleasure to hold and read this book. In an age where hardcover bindings are glued in and crack after one reading and the average book is rushed to press before the typos are weeded out, this book reminds us that a book itself can be an object of art.This book contains the writings of Jim Corbett, a civil servant in British India who happened to be a crack shot and game tracker. Mr. Corbett was hired by the Government on several occasions to dispose of man eating leopards and tigers. What makes Jim Corbett's writings so noteworthy is their direct honesty and utter sense of humanity. Let me say upfront that I love tales of big game hunting, and I bought this book because, among big-game hunting literature, Jim Corbett's books are considered classics, along with the writings of more traditional hunters like Walter Bell and Frederick Courteney Selous. Among these big game hunting classics, Corbett's writings are unique in that, unlike most big game hunters, Corbett didn't seem to derive any "thrill of the hunt." He was doing a job he was very good at to save innocent lives, pure and simple. He had love and sympathy for the animals he was killing, and he became committed to killing them reluctantly. This feeling of respect for the animal and reluctance in its destruction is most evident in The Man-Eating Leopard of Rudraprayag.Once committed, however, Corbett seemed to take personal responsibility for every individual the man-eating leopard killed, and his sense of depression and guilt over each fresh kill done on his watch is palpable in these pages. This particular leopard stalked travelers and towns along the pilgrim's road that led to the shrines in Kedernath and Badrinath, often selecting children or the aged. Reading Corbett's plain, effective prose, the deadly situation takes on a religious significance. Corbett is defeated several times, each failure resulting in more pilgrims killed, and the pilgrims and people in the towns came to believe that the leopard was an evil spirit that had taken on material form.Let me wrap up by saying that Corbett was a man to be admired for his basic, down-to-earth humanity and his complete lack of self-congratulation. He was simply a man of high character and wrote plainly about being exhausted, disgusted with his failings, and just flat scared. He was also a very humble man and always seemed embarrassed by the extreme expressions of gratitude given him upon his ultimate success in bagging the man-eater.The final scene, where villagers come to the bazaar where the leopard is on display, is extremely moving. The people came in droves and one-by-one showered Corbett's feet with flowers while reciting tales of their children or loved ones that had been killed by the man-eater. Suffice to say this is one of the most simple and beautifully rendered scenes I have read in any book.Of all the big game hunting books I have read, Corbett's writings hold a special place for me. His skill as a hunter saved hundreds of lives, ending the suffering of more hundreds, perhaps thousands. Yet he never thought himself a hero.Perhaps that was the very quality that made him heroic.
